It is a common mistake to suppose that, because a woman is nursing, she ought therefore to live very fully, and to add an allowance of wine, porter, or other fermented liquid, to her usual diet. The only result of this plan is to cause an unnatural degree of fulness in the system, which places the nurse on the brink of disease, and which of itself frequently puts a stop to, instead of increasing, the secretion of the milk. The health and usefulness of country nurses are often utterly ruined by their transplantation into the families of rich and luxurious employers. Accustomed at home to constant bodily exertion, exposure to the air, and a moderate supply of the plainest food, they live in the enjoyment of the best health, and constitute excellent nurses. But the moment they are translated from their proper sphere, their habits and mode of life undergo an unfavourable change. Having no longer any laborious duties to perform, or any daily exposure to encounter, they become plethoric and indolent; and as they are at the same time too well fed, the digestive functions become impaired, the system speedily participates in the disorder, and the milk, which was at first bland, nourishing, and plentiful, now becomes heating and insufficient, and sometimes even stops altogether. The motive which induces the mother to take the nurse out of her proper element is extremely amiable--she is desirous to see that her infant is properly attended to; but the method which she takes to gratify this desire is not on that account the less short-sighted and erroneous. If the nurse cannot be trusted with the child at her own home, care ought to be taken at least that her diet and mode of life be changed as little as possible from those which experience has proved to be most conducive to her health; and the system of feeding, confinement, and indolence, usually resorted to, ought to be strictly prohibited, as fraught with evil to both nurse and child.